


Turn the mirrors around

by capfrye



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Other, death mention, there's pain and sadness but that's what the critrole life is about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 19:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17189345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capfrye/pseuds/capfrye
Summary: No empty sockets, no wisp-like darkness, no gnawed at bones. Just him. Just Mollymauk.Molly’s mouth curves into a smirk.---It's not the darkness under the bed that scares Mollymauk, but the one that claws at the back of his mind.





	Turn the mirrors around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tamaslin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaslin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [notes on staying](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14887910) by [tamaslin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaslin/pseuds/tamaslin). 



> There wasn't any real point to this only to get some writing done and get sad over Molly again. But it's also a gift for Rhys / tamaslin because they're my precious loaf of bread.

_Turn all the mirrors around and hope that nobody sees what’s behind them._

    It’s easy enough to do at this point. It’s easy to manipulate light without holding it, to avert gazes without touching them and fool them without a second thought. Illusions are what his eyes, hands and mouth are best at, because anything is better than acknowledging the six feet of soil that had once borne down on him --or had it been seven? Eight? It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he can’t pretend they were never there, that the pressure on his ribcage isn’t feather light despite it resembling an ocean bearing down on him. He wonders if this is how Fjord lives every second of every minute of every hour, or if he pretends otherwise. That doesn’t matter either. There’s air filling his lungs just as surely as he once filled a six-walled space in the dark. It’s fine.

    Well, now this one is _four_ walled. Three if you call the fourth wall the floor. It’s both an improvement and a downgrade.

    Crimson eyes fall upon the left wall, then the ceiling, then the right wall. He can’t look at the floor because that involves shedding the warmth the blankets have gathered around him and looking over the edge of the bed, and he feels he isn’t ready to face whatever might reach out from underneath, grab him by the throat, and drag him into the void. He shakes his head, a silent scoff, hair and horns rustling quietly against the pillow. That’s a bit macabre. Not only that, but he’s faced worse. There are no monsters under his bed, not if he doesn’t think about them.

    It’s easy enough to fool the world. _It makes sense that fooling myself,_ thinks Mollymauk, _is essentially second nature._

    What he can’t ignore, however, is the string at the back of his mind, like how wood must feel when paws scrape against its surface and carve jagged lines onto it. His heart beats a touch faster, and the darkness of the room feels a touch more oppressive. The other bed is empty, neatly made as if it hasn’t been disturbed for several days. Since when had the Nein been able to afford individual rooms? And not only that, when had Molly agreed to brave the night on his own?

    He never agreed. Waking up hadn’t even been a conscious choice.

    But staying alive had.

    _Focus, Molly._

    The pitch-black darkness of the room subsumes him, draws him in as kindly as a mother’s embrace. That’s not a comparison he should be able to make. Focus. It doesn’t scare him, or at least it shouldn’t, not when the emptiness he once professed and that once lived in his mind had taken on that same color: black. Empty. Em. Tee. Empty and simultaneously full of nothing. Molly’s always held a propensity for talking but it’s usually his mouth articulating and not his mind, but now his thoughts are noisier than the beating wings of a thousand birds. Molly crosses his arms behind his head and flexes a knee, but the change in his posture doesn’t make his thoughts any easier to deal with, and neither does it dispel the tension that has begun creeping into his muscles.

    He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, lets it out while he counts to nine. Nine. _Nein._ Molly turns the names of his companions over in his mind, like gently kicking pebbles that lay on his path. Fjord. Nott. Beau. Yasha. Caleb. Jester. Every name brings a flash of its bearer to mind. Despite the distance at which he keeps them at, lest one of them toe past the line he has drawn between Molly and Mollymauk and bring the cards toppling down, the warmth of their memory still reaches him. _A motley group of assholes, indeed._

    His own name comes soon after Jester’s, as sinuous as the ink that weaves up his neck. Mollymauk.

    Molly opens his eyes. Two empty eye sockets stare at him, black tendrils rolling about the bone like the sea in a starless night. Molly makes to move, to reach for his swords, but his body doesn’t respond. He feels lighter, made of nothing, held together by simple magic. He tries again to no avail. It suddenly becomes clear that his bones are not his own anymore, that he’s staring at his own skeleton.

    It’s him, but it’s not him. Those bones are different, some of them shorter and some of them longer, their surface worn down to the marrow as if a hungry maw had gnawed at them without reprieve. His chest collapses, deprived of the support it so desperately needs. It’s getting harder to breathe. It feels like he’s being split apart at the sternum, as though a glaive were running him through. Breathing is impossible now. Mollymauk is calm.

    So this is what it’s like. So this is what _what_ is like? It’s not dying, because dying isn’t a choice that will be taken away from him like this. Dying will happen on his own terms. So what is this exactly?

    It’s the grave come back to get him. It’s the taste of graveyard dirt on his tongue, rot curled around his teeth. It’s everything he has hidden behind the overturned mirrors, only those mirrors have been put back in place, everything he’s denied reflected back at him. Ah. So this is what happens when you run for so long, when your own dazzling charms wear off. Crimson becomes black, and the baubles you wear around your horns lose their luster.

    A hand materializes from the nothing. The hand reaches for his throat. _You cannot touch me._ The bony fingers close around his lavender flesh, phalanxes digging into the tattoos on the side of his neck. _You cannot touch me._ Molly closes his eyes again. _You cannot claim me._

    He is colder than those bones, skin and senses immune to the ice of the past. That is no illusion; it is no feeble attempt at self-delusion, but a truth he has fabricated out of conviction and newfound purpose. This body cannot hold him. Mollymauk has grown larger than his own life, little pieces of himself sneaked inside his companions for safekeeping: the grave cannot take him because it would have to take the others with it, too, and he will not allow it.

    Molly reaches out at last, grabs that skeletal wrist. The bone rattles under his grip and after a few excruciatingly long seconds, it snaps in half.

    The weight returns with the weight and suddenness of a wave washing over him, but at least his bones are back in place. He can pull himself out of those depths, return to where he has to be. Above. Out. Molly looks at his hand, sees dirt under his fingernails. He inhales, and his lungs expand.

    Molly opens his eyes, breath hitching, a full-bodied shiver wracking his form before he can regain his wits. He’s still in bed, arms behind his head. It’s still dark out, and Fjord is still dozing on the other bed. This isn’t the grave. Molly breathes in, counts to nine, exhales, and allows sleep to take him.

    In the morning, the mirror on the vanity is the focus of his attention. Molly half expects to find those empty sockets staring back at him, the same paralysis to overtake him, but he only sees himself. Mollymauk.

    He pushes the mirror, turns it around, but instead of staring at its back wooden surface, another face of the mirror reveals itself.

    No empty sockets, no wisp-like darkness, no gnawed at bones. Just him. Just _Mollymauk._

    Molly’s mouth curves into a smirk.


End file.
